1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hypertext information acquisition system and a computer-readable recording medium storing a hypertext information acquisition program, and more particularly to a hypertext information acquisition system and a computer-readable recording medium storing a hypertext information acquisition program which is capable of acquiring desired document contents by following hypertext links.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the Internet, the WWW (world wide Web) is constructed based on hypertext, and many of the WWW pages (Web page contents) are written in a hypertext document format HTML (hypertext markup language). The HTML pages are linked by link information added to the pages. Link information is formatted by using a predetermined tag to define a link from one page to another. The user can select and designate a link information item in a displayed page to thereby access another page referenced by the link information item. Consequently, the user can access desired information easily by repeating this operation.
In general, a computer, such as a personal computer or a workstation, is used for access to information on the WWW. Hypertext information on the Internet can be accessed by connecting the computer to a network and activating a WWW browser. Recently, an apparatus designed for dedicated use for browsing the WWW, a television set having the capability of browsing the WWW, etc. have been developed and placed in commercial use. Further, even a portable intelligent terminal which is capable of browsing the WWW has been invented.
However, the problem is that since WWW browsing requires an apparatus having at least WWW browsing capability, such as the above-mentioned apparatuses, a person having no such apparatus at hand cannot access any WWW page. Moreover, if a personal user wants to have access to the Internet, it is required to make a contract with an internet service provider and posses a communication device such as a modem, which may be an excessive burden to a user who rarely utilizes the Internet.
A facsimile (hereinafter referred to as the "FAX") is a device for transmitting and receiving image information by using a telephone line. The FAX is widely used, so that it will be very convenient if the FAX can be used for receipt of WWW pages. However, since the WWW is constructed by the hypertext, it is required to provide some means for following links even when WWW pages are browsed by FAX. In conventional methods of accessing linked Web page contents, a pointing device or the like is used to designate a link (tagged link information) of contents linked to other Web page contents. However, to receive Web page contents by FAX, there has been no means for designating such a link to other Web page contents, which makes it impossible to acquire Web page contents referenced by a link within other Web page contents.